


Comes Around

by Xparrot



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Babies, Changelings, Changelings (Trollhunters) Have Issues, Developing Relationship, F/M, Kid Fic, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Present Tense, the Cradlestone Babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-09 19:11:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17412593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: After the Eternal Night, Barbara hardly has the time to figure out her own life, when she's got the lives of all these ex-familiar babies in her hands. And the changeling staying in her guest room doesn't help...or maybe he's the easiest part of this.





	Comes Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



> Just passing through, please excuse any canon discrepancies (I was halfway into the story before I realized changelings do not have tails (sigh!) So Strickler was de-tailed in time, but other inaccuracies have likely slipped past.) Thanks to Gnine and Naye for the read-through.
> 
> This is all on you, Sholio -- enjoy!

As it turns out, even outside the Darklands, the babies can be removed from and returned to the cradlestone. This is useful, because while there aren't actually a thousand, there does turn out to be several hundred children crammed in there. And Arcadia's reputation has gotten wild enough without the town dumping a few gross of unidentified infants into California's foster care system.

Instead, with Walt's help, Barbara extracts the babies a few at a time, takes pictures and measurements and any other identifying features, and tucks them away back in the cradlestone while she does research.

Most of this ends up being coordination with the hospital's social worker to line up foster homes. She's gone through almost a hundred babies before she matches one to her first set of parents—a mother and father up in Toronto, who a week before filed a missing child report for their daughter, eleven months old.

Cindy Fournier looks younger than that, maybe only six months, but she has the same round pink cheeks as in the online photo, as she giggles and waves at Barbara. And her parents are too overjoyed to have her back to question the seeming de-aging. They fly out to San Francisco to pick her up.

Barbara doesn't go with Anne to drop the baby off. That's one out of hundreds—how many other parents are there out there now, who have just lost their children, gone overnight without a trace, just an empty crib or an empty bed.

Who have just _realized_ they lost their children, when really it was months ago, or years ago, and they didn't have any idea. Maybe they noticed something was odd, that something was different, but they wrote it off; children change, after all, they grow up, that's what they're supposed to do. Convinced themselves there was nothing wrong, not seriously. 

Until the moment their seeming child transformed into something else entirely, something that would have fled before it could be seen, before it could be recognized for what it really was.

So many mothers and fathers, bewildered and heartbroken, and Barbara might be able to help them. Really she doesn't see that she has much choice. 'First, do no harm'—but sometimes inaction is more harmful. And she's one of the very few in a position to right this wrong.

"—You should go to bed," Walt tells her, the third time he finds her fallen asleep on her laptop and drooling on the keyboard. 

Barbara squints at the clock, can't make out the fuzzy numbers. She gropes around the desk for her glasses until Walt takes pity on her, pushes them into her hands from where he's holding them. She must have been out, if she didn't even notice those talons brush her skin as he removed them.

"It's barely past one," Barbara says, once she's gotten the glasses firmly enough on her nose to read the clock. "I might have something—I was on Interpol's site, there's this baby-napping case in Moscow. You don't read Russian, do you? Google Translate's giving me gibberish—"

"I'm fluent in Old Slavonic," Walt says, "so I may be able to make some sense of it."

Barbara blinks at him. Walt blinks glowing cat-slit eyes back at her.

"Fine, then, try," Barbara tells him, picking up the laptop to shove it at him.

Walt takes the computer. His claws scritch against the plastic case. "All right," he says, "provided you go sleep. In your bed."

It's not a fair bargain. Really, Walt has nothing to bargain with; even if he's not directly responsible for all these lost children, he has far more guilt to seek absolution for. He hasn't complained once when helping her. He wouldn't argue this, either, if Barbara put her foot down.

But she's too tired to step into that quagmire. "Good luck," is all she tells him, and stumbles off to her bedroom, leaving him to the puzzle.

She manages to brush her teeth, but falls asleep on top of the covers. She wakes up a little before seven in the morning, to find her glasses on the nightstand and a quilt carefully spread over her.

That's familiar enough. There's no breakfast cooking on the stove, though, when she makes it downstairs.

 

* * *

 

The Moscow case turns out to be a bust, but Walt finds a more promising lead in the Ukraine—the timing of the missing child report is right, anyway, though the lost baby isn't one of those Barbara has catalogued yet. 

It goes to show that she's not doing enough. She has a shift at the hospital, but afterwards she drinks half a gallon of coffee and settles down with Walt and the cradlestone.

By now they've got the procedure down. Her home office has been converted into a makeshift nursery, two cribs with room for four babies at a time. Walt pulls the infants out of the cradlestone as adeptly as any experienced obstetrician, places them one by one in the cribs. While Barbara performs her examinations, he's—marking them, or memorizing them, or whatever it is he does that allows him to pick an individual child out of the stone later. It doesn't hurt them, or affect them permanently in any way, he's assured her.

She tries to complete the examinations as quickly as possible while still being thorough—but they're babies, just tiny little children, and some of them are crying and some are giggling and they've all been locked up in a magic crystal, after being held in a transdimensional dungeon for however long before that. 

They're all healthy, and as far as she can tell, largely untraumatized. But Barbara can't help but slow down enough to give them a cuddle, a bottle, a little bit of human tenderness. So it takes longer than it should, every time.

Walt doesn't comment on this, ever; he watches her lingering sometimes, but usually he's concentrating on the cradlestone or the other babies. He's excruciatingly careful with them, if not quite what she'd call gentle; he treats them like glass, or damp clay—unwilling to touch them longer than absolutely necessary, as if his clawed hands might mar them.

Except tonight, when he's brought out their third batch—Barbara is clucking at the first child, making faces, when she realizes Walt hasn't yet put the last baby down. He's just holding the infant in his arms, a little boy, who waves his chubby limbs and burbles, as Walt stares down at him with enormous unblinking gold-cast eyes.

"Walt?" Barbara asks, but he doesn't answer. Doesn't move, like he's been frozen—not turned to stone, not in the middle of the night, and his skin is still that leathery olive green, not gray—but it disturbs her enough that she puts the baby girl she's holding back down in the crib. If something's gone wrong with the cradlestone, or this child... Cautiously she touches Walt's arm. "Is something the matter?"

He jerks back, a violent flinch, but his instincts are good; he tightens his arms around the baby instead of letting him fall. The infant squeals in delight at this game, and Walt shakes his head. He straightens up to his formidable height, narrows his eyes as he turns his head toward her.

"Walter?" Barbara asks.

"No," Walt says, "Not Walter," and while she's mostly gotten used to the lower register of his troll self's voice, now it's dropped to a growl deep enough to rattle her teeth. "My name's Stricklander."

"Your troll name, yes, I know?" Barbara says slowly. She doesn't back away, but she braces herself. If he's...lost his memory, or his conscience or whatever passes for such in a troll changeling—but he's holding a baby, and there are three more in the crib, and the cradlestone—

"It's _my_ name, Barbara," Walt says, and he sounds angry—or like he's trying to be, anyway, but maybe not at her. "This— _this_ is Walt," and he shoves the infant at her, dumps him into her arms like handing off a whole sack of hot potatoes.

Barbara blinks down at the mess of dark hair, the cute button nose, the bluish eyes. Maybe they're starting to show some green? The baby grimaces up at her, mouth puckering in a pout. "This...is this your familiar?"

Walt nods jerkily. He reaches out his hand, then pulls it back, hovering a few inches over the baby. The infant stops squinting suspiciously at Barbara and burbles cheerfully, reaching up for that clawed hand with both of his tiny chubby ones.

"You're sure?" Barbara asks. "I mean, it's been a long time since you've, umm. Seen yourself as a baby?"

Walt nods again. "It's him. I've watched him for—for years, for many years." His golden eyes are fixed on the baby with an intensity that's almost predatory, with those slitted pupils. "Goblins can only be trusted so far, after all, and it's vital...a familiar must be kept safe at all times. Else we lose our one advantage, our only purpose."

The baby Waltolemew Strickler finally manages to grab one of Walt's fingers and pulls it close. Walt turns his hand without drawing it away, so the baby sticks a green knuckle into his mouth instead of a sharp talon, and starts sucking happily.

"He seems to like you?" Barbara offers.

It's just a simple observation, but the wrong one somehow. Walt yanks his hand back and snarls—like some cornered big cat, not like a man. It makes Barbara's pulse jump, but the baby—the baby she's holding just giggles.

Walt's eyes widen while his pupils shrink to lines. He takes a step back, and there's a moment Barbara thinks he's going to turn tail—not literally—and bolt from the room, maybe from the house. Maybe from Arcadia. 

Barbara clears her throat. "We've got three other babies out besides him," she reminds. "Do you have them all set to be retrieved again?"

Walt's slit pupils expand slightly, slide back up to her. "Not...yet," he grinds out.

"Then why don't you do that," Barbara says, "while I examine them."

So that's what they do, while the baby naps in his sleepsack in the crib. When Barbara has finished with the other children, she tells Walt, "Okay, if you're ready, you can put these three back."

Walt glances at the fourth infant. "What about...?"

Barbara picks up the baby boy. He smiles sleepily back at her, yawns and scrunches shut his eyes. "I was thinking that we could keep him out for now. I don't have any work shifts for a few days, and we've got a lot more kids to get through. But we could do with a little company. And you could get to know him a little better. Here, instead of through a mirror."

She holds out the sleeping baby. Gingerly, Walt slips his talons under the swaddling flannel, lifts him up. The infant doesn't stir but snoozes quietly in his arms, limply content.

Walt stares down at the baby like he's a book written in something harder than Old Slavonic. Barbara takes the opportunity to stare at Walt. She's not yet used to reading that inhuman face, those intensely different eyes.

When Barbara was first getting to know Walt, when she still thought of him primarily as her son's schoolteacher, she'd noticed it—a certain look in his eyes, a spark that flashed bright when he started to speak of history, referencing a battle like he'd been on the field himself. A flicker of gold in the hazel-green that had fascinated her, drawn her in. Kept her looking more closely, so that she developed a greater appreciation for those patrician features, that rich voice.

Now she's peering into that preternatural gold looking for some spot of hazel. For some human hue.

_Make up your mind, Barbara. What do you want?_

"All right," Walt says finally. He lifts his head from the baby, looks at her. "If that's what you want, let's keep him here for now."

 

* * *

 

Barbara's been dealing with infants for weeks now, but with the others it was equivalent to a typical doctor's exam—short-term care, briefly getting to know them and then a see-you-later. It's different keeping one overnight, living in the house, and she's fifteen years out of practice.

But some routines are like riding a bike. And it somehow doesn't surprise Barbara that Walt's familiar—former familiar—is an easy baby. Jim was colicky, up and screaming night and day for months. But the new infant in the house goes to sleep easily come evening, and between bottles most of his wails can be soothed by popping a pacifier into his mouth.

If that fails, there's a surefire solution: he invariably stops crying the instant Walt picks him up. Oftentimes just hearing Walt's voice is enough to make his face clear and his tears dry up and dissolve into giggles.

Walt accepts this charge with reluctant but persistent resolve. He doesn't ask Barbara for much advice, but he watches closely.

The first night, when Barbara wakes up to the distinctive shriek of a hungry infant, she dazedly reaches for the other side of the bed—but it's empty, of course; she's slept alone for years. She gets up, makes a bottle and feeds the baby, and goes back to sleep the moment her head hits the pillow.

The second night, when the crying rouses her, she stumbles out of her bedroom and down to the kitchen—to find Walt already at the microwave, carefully measuring out formula for the bottle.

"You can go back to bed," he says, "I've got this."

Barbara just stands there in a half-asleep stupor, watching as he tests the warmth by dripping a dot of formula onto his wrist. Does troll skin even register heat that sensitively? But the baby seems fine with it, curling up in Walt's arms and sucking contentedly on the bottle.

"Really, Barbara," Walt tells her. "It's fine. Go sleep."

So she wanders back to bed. Then lies there, head on the pillow, trying to remember if Jim's father had ever gotten up for a night feeding without her asking him to, those first months of parenthood.

She'd been nursing then, of course; it wasn't the same as warming up a bottle in the microwave. And trolls are naturally nocturnal.

Still. She honestly can't remember if James ever woke up first.

 

* * *

 

Walt doesn't just figure out bottles; he masters pampers within a couple changings, deftly plucking wet wipes from the box by hooking them with a single talon. Even when Barbara hauls up from the basement the box of Jim's old children's books, Walt doesn't waver. 

And there is something completely incongruously charming about watching a cat-eyed, bat-winged, horned and clawed troll sitting in an armchair with a chubby pink infant on his bony knee, solemnly reading _Horton Hears a Who_ in a voice that wouldn't be out of place newscasting on the BBC.

Barbara manages to limit herself to saving just three pictures on her phone. And only forty-five seconds of video that she's not going to upload anywhere.

She took the time off to deal with the other babies—and she is; they get through examining a couple dozen more, and there's a good possibility she's found the Ukrainian changeling's familiar. The picture is similar enough, anyway, that she sends off a message to Anne, who as a registered social worker can get the process moving through the right government systems. Better to go through official channels; the last thing Barbara needs to deal with is an international human trafficking charge. And Arcadia could do without a federal investigation; Councilwoman Nunez has enough on her plate as it is.

Barbara doesn't have as much time as she thought she would, though. Any baby would be distracting, of course; raising kids is a lifetime project in itself. There's a reason they only had the one, with Barbara's career, and James'. 

But this is a specifically strange case. To look into this round-cheeked face and know what it's going to look like, fifty or so years from now; to know what shade of green those baby-blue eyes will become, what baritone voice those squealing coos are going to develop into.

—Or maybe not. Who's to say this Waltolemew Strickler will eat like the changeling one did, or exercise. He'll have a more modern fashion sense, probably. And an American accent, if he grows up here.

At any rate, his face will be his own. Not stolen; his to keep.

As Walt's face now is his own.

(Stricklander's face? But he hasn't said it to her again, and she hasn't asked him what he really wants to be called. Isn't sure she dares; isn't sure she wants to know.)

Does Walt miss it? she wonders. Some parts of a human life, she knows he does. She's seem him looking out the window with something like yearning, watching the sun stretch across the lawn. He won't eat dinner with her, but he'll sit with her when she eats, and shoots her plate longing glances. Not as pained as Jim had, but envious.

The face, though—does Walt look into the mirror now and still be startled by what he sees? Or is it a relief, to be able to wear the face he was born with, and not worry about pretending all the time to be what he isn't.

Whatever he actually is. 

Which tonight involves a book—not Dr. Seuss this time, but a thick volume: Dante's Divine Comedy, in the original Italian. Walt clutches it in his talons as he perches on the arm of the sofa, legs drawn up and the edges of his wings hanging down like he's a squatting gargoyle.

The portable bassinet is next to the couch, the baby sound asleep inside, while Walt idly rocks it with one wingtip.

"He wouldn't go to sleep in the crib?" Barbara asks.

Walt inserts a bookmarks, sets aside the book. "He seemed content enough here, I thought it better not to disturb him. How'd your research go?"

Barbara stretches, unkinking her spine from the hours spent on her laptop. "Not great—oh, but Anne got back to me! It's looking promising, returning little Radmila to her parents in the Ukraine."

"Excellent," Walt says, matching her own tired grin.

His smile is sharp-toothed and heartfelt and it warms Barbara, makes her forget the backache and eyestrain. She watches the bassinet rock gently back and forth, remarks, "Maybe you missed your calling. You should've been teaching pre-school, not high school."

Walt's wings curl in, fold around his shoulders. "I'm not teaching anything now, with this face," he says, and he might mean it to be a joke like hers, but it doesn't quite come out like that.

"I'm sorry," Barbara says. "That was...I shouldn't have said it."

"No—no," Walt says immediately, "I'm sorry, I'm..."

"Going stir-crazy," Barbara says. He's trapped in the house in the daytime of course, but even at night he doesn't venture out. He could, at least in Arcadia now; he's one of the less extreme examples of trolldom, practically reassuring compared to many of their newly introduced neighbors. But then, Barbara doesn't think it's the humans he's avoiding.

And besides, now he's saddled with a baby to take care of, because it was Barbara's idea, and Walt doesn't...it's not that he doesn't have reason to feel guilty. Or that he doesn't have something to make up to her—a lot to make up to her; more, really, than can feasibly be reckoned with. Both to her personally, and also her as proxy for the world he nearly helped end.

But he's here now, helping her instead. And doesn't refuse anything she asks.

"I'm filling in a few shifts at the hospital in the next couple days," Barbara says. She's technically still on leave, but dealing with the repercussions of the invasion, they need extra hands. "So we should put him back. In the cradlestone. Or—and I should start looking for an adoptive family; he's the only child we know for sure that we won't find his birth parents..."

Walt has gone still, even his rustling wings, stone without the sun. 

"...If you want to," Barbara says. "Unless...well, there's a daycare near the hospital, they probably have openings, with all the people moving out of town..."

"I could watch him," Walt says. "While you're at work." When she hesitates, he shifts his wings, says, "Though of course, if you'd prefer to entrust him to human caretakers..."

Barbara shakes her head. "That's...you're good with him, but it's a big..."

"I did once willingly accept responsibility over classrooms of children, for whole schooldays," Walt says, a touch acerbically.

"Teenagers," Barbara says.

"Exactly," Walt counters. "If I could keep hormone-addled adolescents from getting themselves killed, I can likely manage one infant."

Barbara has wondered before about Walt's career. His motives for coming to Arcadia are obvious. But a high school isn't the most obvious positioning for a changeling needing influence and access. Ms. Nomura's job at the museum gave her an in with the artifacts trade, but Mr. Strickler had been a fixture at Arcadia Oaks High for several years at least, and to what end, he's never mentioned. As far as Barbara understood it, no one had any idea a human teenager would become the Trollhunter. So what was the advantage for his cause, to be a teacher?

But then, she's gone over the timing, calculated out when Jim got the amulet. That parent-teacher's meeting, when she'd first met Jim's history teacher, the famous Mr. Strickler who he kept quoting at dinner, and they'd happened to go an hour over the appointed time, talking about Joseph Campbell...that had been a good month before Jim had anything to do with trolls.

"If you're sure," she says. "That you want to be a...a babysitter."

"We'll be fine, Barbara," Walt says, relaxing enough to smile—and when had it become so easy to identify that expression between the fangs?

When had she gotten to the point that instead of noticing how sharp those teeth were, she's stepping forward—she's leaning forward, to press her lips to them.

They're at least as sharp as they look; she could cut herself on them—but Walt ducks his head slightly away, before she does. But he doesn't pull back otherwise, struck motionless again.

His eyes are alight, though—literally, cold orange fire, fixed on her.

She puts her hands on his chest. His skin is smooth but tougher than any hide, more like water-rounded stone, carved and inscribed—except it gives under her touch, moves as he breathes. And it's warm.

"Trolls don't kiss, do they?" Barbara asks.

"Not generally, no," Walt says.

"So what do they do instead?"

He pauses. Then stands, wraps his arms around her—and his wings, folding across her shoulders. 

They're warm, too, the membranes softer than expected—like being swaddled in cured leather, and she lets go a breathless laugh. "What—what do they do if they don't have wings?"

"We have ways," Walt rumbles in her ear, and she squeaks when she feels a tickle against her earlobe—drier and more supple than a human tongue, and longer—must be, to maneuver around those fangs, and that—that is certainly— _interesting_ —"Shall I show you some?"

"Yes," Barbara says, "Please," and then, not to be outdone, because humans have tricks too, she turns her head and catches the lobe of his own pointed ear between her teeth.

Walt hisses, like a cat, though not angry—anything but, she thinks, as he curves his hands around her waist to lift her up, far more easily than any human could, and with his wings still curled around her. 

She remembers flying with him—fleeing for their lives, which is probably a good part of why it's so vivid in her mind; but it had been exhilarating even with the fear. Maybe some night he could take her up again, with less fleeing and more fun.

For now—for now, there's enough exhilaration here on the ground.

 

* * *

 

At two a.m the baby starts crying. Barbara starts awake, begins to sit up in bed.

A hand on her shoulder stops her. "I've got him," Walt tells her. In the bedroom's darkness, his eyes glow brighter than the digital display of the alarm clock.

Barbara lets her head drop back down onto the pillow. "He's, what, five months old? Six?" she mumbles into the plush foam. "We should probably start sleep-training soon..."

Walt pauses. "We can talk about it in the morning," he says finally.

The mattress dips and shifts as his considerable weight moves off it. His footsteps are nearly silent on the carpet.

"Walt?" Barbara says, lifting her head.

Paired gold orbs turn back toward her. "Yes?"

"Come back to bed when he's asleep again?"

The gold is shuttered, then lit again as he blinks. "Doctor's orders," he agrees, and his fangs gleam in that yellow glow.

 

* * *

 

A week isn't really long enough to establish a routine. But it's the beginning of a pattern, anyway, and one Barbara could get used to—wants to get used to. She's as tired as ever, coming off her hospital shifts, but it's different, coming back not to an empty house, but to people. A baby. A...troll. 

People who smile when they see her, who welcome her home. 

There was always Jim, of course, but for the last year he's been more text messages and plates of leftovers than a physical presence. Which should have prepared her for him being gone now, but it's still jarring to know he's not here. He's only sixteen; she was supposed to have another year and a half before she lost him to college. Now...

Now, at least she doesn't have an empty nest. And Walt is as good as promised at holding down the fort. His cooking isn't much higher a caliber than her own, given that he can't taste-test any meals for her, but he's more effective with the vacuuming than Jim.

Also he's got an Amazon account, so not only do the pampers get restocked, but there's now newer illustrated books mixed in with Jim's old collection, and a plastic mobile over the crib that plays a selection of Mozart and Bach—"Classical music stimulates mental development, anecdotally, anyway," Walt says, more defensively than is really called for, considering Barbara didn't say anything about it.

She does notice it plays Grieg, too, and guesses where that anecdote came from. Barbara isn't sure how often Walt is in touch with Nomura, but she's glad to know he has someone to talk to about changeling things.

Even with her work shifts, they manage to get through a bunch of babies in the cradlestone. Better yet, they find leads on several other pairs of parents with lost infants that can be matched to the familiars. And baby Radmila is on her way home to the Ukraine.

With all the online research Barbara's doing, it's not surprising that her newsfeed starts giving her missing child reports. But it's still jarring, reading on her phone as she makes the morning's coffee, to see the date on one of those tragic cases.

Barbara doesn't have a shift at the clinic today, so she can hole up in her office. She hears the baby wake up, lets Walt deal with him, as she searches, and goes over her spreadsheet, and tries to decide if she's right, or if she only wishes that she's mistaken.

Walt knocks on the office door a while later, enters at her distracted mumble. "Barbara? You left the coffee on, I suspect it's strong enough; do you want to risk it, or should I brew another...Barbara?"

Barbara swivels her chair around, stares up at him. "I've been thinking babies—but they're not all babies, of course. Not here. And I knew that, but I wasn't trying...the missing children reports, most of them don't include baby pictures—but this, I just saw this story. The Powells, they have a son..."

The video's gotten over a million hits, with more people watching every second. It's vertical, taken on a cell phone in a kid's room. There are dinosaur posters on the wall behind the couple. The Powells sit with their shoulders pressed together. The father is holding a worn stuffed lion and has visible tears on his cheeks; the mother's eyes are clear as she looks at the camera, but her face is drawn with exhaustion. _"Please,"_ she begs. _"If anyone's seen him, if you know anything about what happened, let us know. Help us get Parker back."_

"Parker Powell, nine years old, and he just vanished from his room," Barbara says. "The police don't have any leads—but it was the same day, the day of the Eternal Night. I just went through their account, years back, until I found their baby vids—look, this is from the very first batch we took out of the cradlestone," and she shows Walt her laptop. "Doesn't he look identical?

Walt studies the vid and then the photo, the little boy's bright brown eyes and fuzzy black curls, finally nods.

"I don't know what to do," Barbara says, flinging herself up out of her chair to pace the room. "How am I supposed to convince them that their son is—was—that for the last nine years, they were raising a—a—someone who wasn't who they thought? And now there's this baby, who is their son, for real—but he doesn't even walk or talk yet, and when he grows up he might not be anything like the boy they thought they were raising—how am I supposed to explain this to them?"

She knots her hands in her hair, clenches her fists until she feels the pull against her scalp. "How many others are like this? Older than this—what about the ones who aren't children at all anymore? Those parents—these babies are still theirs, and the children they thought they knew have disappeared now, without a trace, and even if they don't want to raise another child from infancy—they should know, shouldn't they? They have a right to know, don't they? Or maybe—"

"Barbara." Walt steps in front of her to stop her pacing, takes her arms. He curls his hands around her forearms, carefully, so she doesn't feel a single claw against her skin. "Barbara, breathe, please."

"Maybe I shouldn't tell them—would it be better if they didn't know? If they just thought their child was—was living somewhere else, they'd have already moved away from home, I'm sure—I doubt many changelings were staying in their mother's basements—but if I know, then isn't it my responsibility to tell them, to—"

"You can't," Walt says.

"I _could_ ," Barbara says, "but I don't know if I _should_ —"

"No, you can't. You won't find those parents. Not for most of the familiars in the cradlestone," Walt says slowly. "Not for any whose changeling reached human adulthood."

"We can at least look—even if they're grown up, even if they're too old now to raise another child, the parents still deserve to know—"

"No changeling over eighteen—give or take the local age of majority—has human parents anymore," Walt says.

Barbara frowns at him, about to ask for more clarification—do they get themselves disowned, or just run away from home, or is it some trollish coming-of-age thing, to deny—

Walt misinterprets her expression. He shakes his head, a single violent twitch. "I—I'm sorry," he says, turns and leaves the room, leaves her alone. His wings are mantled up over his shoulders, high enough to hide his face. Like he can't bear to meet her eyes, can't bear for her to look at him, and Barbara gets it then.

She sits down hard, on the floor when she can't make it to the chair. Puts her head in her hands, breathes through her nose to quell the rising nausea. Her mind slots in the word Walt left out—no _living_ human parents.

Of course that was how it had been. Parents would be a liability. A human connection that changelings shouldn't have, but were obviously vulnerable to all the same. Once those humans served their purpose, raised the cuckoo to independence, it would be safest to sever that potential connection. Ensure the changelings had but one loyalty.

It scares her, how fast she grasps it. How quickly it makes sense to her.

She doesn't know how long she sits there. Eventually in the other room, the baby wakes up from his nap and starts to whimper.

After a couple minutes, the cry climbs to a wail, and Barbara gets up off the floor. She goes to the nursery, picks up the infant and rocks him in her arms. When he won't be hushed, she goes and makes a bottle for him, but he fusses, doesn't want to drink. It takes her a long time to soothe him enough to take the bottle, and he grumbles through his meal.

Walt doesn't appear to help out. It's before sundown, so he must still be in the house.

He better still be in the house.

She waits until she's put the baby down for the night before she heats herself a frozen dinner in the microwave. Then she gets out her phone and calls Jim.

He takes four rings to answer. _"Hey, Mom! How are you? Uh, sorry I wasn't in touch yesterday, it got a little busy..."_

It's been three days since she's gotten a text from him, but she just says, "That's okay. How are you doing?—Is now a good time to talk? You sound out of breath..."

 _"Uh, yeah,"_ Jim says. On the phone's tinny speakers, it's harder to hear the difference in his voice. Anyway, it's still vibrant, still full of life. _"We're just, uh, exercising. Practicing our_ — _"_ he gives a quick gasp and she thinks she hears the clang of metal on metal, or stone, and then he's speaking over it, _"_ — _just practicing our moves, gotta stay sharp, right?"_

"Right," Barbara says.

 _Do you think I'm an idiot?_ she wants to ask him. _Do you remember for how many years I was raising a teenage boy?_

 _Did you know,_ she wants to ask him. Jim had told her about the changelings, along with everything else he'd confessed, the story spilling out of him in so many disjointed fragments. Shapeshifters, assassins, agents of the enemy—but they weren't all bad, he'd told her; they were people, too, after all. Allies, sometimes. Sometimes more.

 _Mr. Strickler_ , Jim had said, _he's_ — _he's one of them, but_ —stumbling through what she already half-remembered. He'd told her about the familiars, the deception. 

Not the deaths, though. 

Jim didn't know. Not her brave and clever and guileless boy. He would have demanded justice, if he'd known. 

_"...Mom?"_ Jim asks. _"Is something wrong?"_ and his concerned voice goes higher, almost sounds like he used to. Almost sounds human.

"I'm okay, honey," Barbara says. "It's just...it's been a long day. Good luck with your—with your exercise. Stay safe."

 _"I will_ — _whoops, gotta go! Love you, Mo_ — _"_ The call cuts off before he finishes the syllable.

Barbara takes a breath. Texts another number: _'What's going on? What's Jim doing?'_

She takes her dinner out of the microwave, eats it alone at the kitchen counter. She puts her phone by the plate, but it doesn't buzz as she eats, no messages coming in.

The door to the guest bedroom is closed, when she passes it. Her own bedroom is empty, to her relief.

It wasn't like he had tricked her—not this time. It wasn't as if she hadn't known exactly what he was. Walter—

Stricklander. He'd told her, hadn't he. Tried to tell her.

She could have asked him. About his parents—about the little baby Waltolemew's parents. About where they'd lived, what they'd done for a living. Something important, probably; the targets for changeling swaps had been pretty carefully selected, it seemed.

Walt—Stricklander would have answered her, she's almost sure. Would have told her, if she'd asked, how they would've raised the baby that she's been caring for. How they'd died—if Walt even knew that, the true story. When did they tell the changelings what they'd done? When it happened? Later, after further indoctrination?

...Unless it was a job they were supposed to handle themselves. Assassins, Jim had called them.

_"They're training me, Mom. They know...a lot..."_

Barbara doesn't know when she falls asleep, or how she even manages it. She awakens in the middle of the night to piercing screams. It takes her a couple seconds of heart-pounding blind terror to recognize the cries as the ordinary wails of a hungry six-month-old who's just learning how to really use his lungs.

Walt usually tends to him before he gets this needy. But the guest room door is still shut tight when Barbara gets up.

She makes a bottle, feeds the baby. Looks down into his bluish-green eyes as he suckles on the bottle, murmuring to him, "How is that? There, there, Walt, it's okay."

It's his name, the name his long-dead parents gave him, before they lost him forever.

It still doesn't feel right. Not really a baby name at all.

When she gets back to her bedroom, she checks her phone. There's a text, received a little earlier:

_'Jim was involved in a minor contretemps, satisfactorily resolved. Forgive the brevity of this missive; will impart the comprehensive details when more stably situated.'_

Barbara breathes out. Puts the phone on her nightstand and tries to go back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The hospital calls at six a.m. Barbara gets dressed, gets cereal. Goes to the nursery to get things ready, then doubles back, pulls her spine straight and her shoulders back, and knocks on the guest room door.

"The hospital's short-staffed, I'm going to fill in," she says. "I'm taking the—Walt, I'm taking Baby Walt to the daycare.

When there's no response, she knocks again, harder. "Did you hear—"

"Yes," comes in a growl.

"Okay," Barbara says. "Okay. When I get back, we can discuss...we can put him back. In the cradlestone. And...figure out how...what to do with the other kids."

She waits a moment. It's not until she's turning away that she hears, barely loud enough to come through the door, "All right."

 

* * *

 

Barbara takes her lunch break at her desk, reviewing patient cases like she's back in med school cramming for the anatomy final. She's mostly done when Anne pokes her head in. "Barbara, you are here!" The social worker smiles at her eagerly. "Glad I caught you—there's something I wanted to show you."

She bustles around the desk, taking out her phone. "I just got this this morning—would've forwarded it to you, but since you were in today I wanted to show you in person. It's from the Fedorchuks—Radmila's parents." She brings up the email attachment, hit play. 

The young couple on the phone screen are both huddled around the baby in the woman's arms. The man is holding the phone to record; he turns to it reluctantly, his other arm around his wife. _"We want to say, thank you,"_ he says, heavily accented but determinedly pushing through the unfamiliar English. _"For our Radmila, giving her back to us. Thank you. Thank you."_

He murmurs something, and Radmila's mother raises her head, softly echoes, _"Thank you."_ Then she ducks her head, tightens her arms around her baby, as her husband folds them both closer, lowering the phone as he ends the video.

"You did that," Anne tells Barbara. "Got her back to them."

Barbara nods, brushes away the tears prickling in her eyes. She's a doctor; she's had grateful patients before. She should be able to be professional about this

Anne puts an arm around her shoulders, gives her a squeeze. "You're doing great work, Barbara. I still don't get exactly what happened, how you found these babies, or how you're keeping them—yeah, yeah, I know, it's magic, that's enough. Maybe in a couple years I'll seriously be able to handle that, but not yet. At any rate, I know how hard it is, what you're doing, how frustrating it can get. So I want you to know that it's worth it—you helped those parents. You're really making a difference."

"Thanks," Barbara says, almost calmly.

"And that latest list of other parents, I'm working on contacting them now," Anne says. "You have any more for me?"

Barbara thinks of Parker Powell. Nine years old, or six months... "I'll let you know."

 

* * *

 

Barbara thinks about the Powells for the rest of her shift, changes her mind every twenty minutes. Tell them, not tell them. Torture them with ignorance, or with the truth.

Do no harm. But if there's only harm; if there's the grief of loss no matter what...

She finally comes to a decision on the drive home. And then it doesn't matter anyway, because when she gets back to the house, as she's bringing Baby Walt, asleep in his car seat, back to the nursery, she hears the sounds from the guest room.

The door is slightly ajar, and there are voices coming from behind it. Human voices, Barbara realizes when she stops by it. Not troll.

The woman speaking sounds vaguely familiar—though it's hard to be sure; the voice has the slight echo of coming through speakers, and it's also thick, choked up with emotion. _"_ — _if you mean it, Mr. Stricklander, it would mean so much to us_ — _"_

"I can't promise you"—and that's Stricklander—only no, he sounds like Walt, the human's baritone rather than the troll's deep-chested growl—Walt saying, with quiet intensity, "I can't make any promises, Ms. Powell, except that I will try to reach out."

 _"_ — _Just a phone call,"_ a different male voice says _, "or a letter_ — _a picture_ — _anything. Just so we know that Parker's okay_ — _"_

"He is," Walt says. "He's right here."

 _"_ — _No, we know, and he_ — _"_ the woman breaks back in, _"_ — _but our Parker_ — _our, our other Parker_ — _"_

"You understand," Walt says, "even if I can find him, he won't be...anything like the boy you knew."

 _"_ — _But still our boy, right? The boy we were raising?"_

"Technically..."

 _"Then that's enough. Whatever you can do. My husband and I, we're getting tickets to California, the moment we get off with you, and we_ — _we'll be there for Parker_ — _sweetie, baby, Mama's coming, and your daddy too, we'll be there soon_ — _thank you, Mr. Stricklander, thank you_ — _"_

It's an American accent instead of Ukrainian, but the gratitude is the same, overwhelming enough to bring a sympathetic lump to Barbara's throat.

Leaving the baby asleep in his car seat in the hall, she pushes in the guest room door, in time to see the faces on her laptop's screen blink out as the call is cut. And Walt spins around in his chair. "Barbara?"

Walt has a baby on his lap—big brown eyes, fuzzy black hair, gumming a cloth rattle. Parker Powell. 

Walt's also human, hazel-green eyes and patrician nose, in his usual tweed; and Barbara stares, trying to figure out if she's gone insane, or if she was before, and how will she even tell either way—

Then Walt reaches up to his face, and removes it—removes a mask, anyway; there's a flicker of magic, and yellow eyes replace the hazel and green-skinned wings replace the tweed. "Excuse the theatrics," he says, and his voice is troll-deep again. "But I wanted to avoid giving the Powells too many shocks at one time."

"The Powells," Barbara repeats. "You—you called them—you told them. About Parker," and she nods at the baby he's holding.

"Yes," Stricklander says.

"And," Barbara says, trying to process, "about the changeling Parker, too."

"Some of it," Stricklander says. "As much as they wanted to hear, for now; I said I'd tell them all, if they wanted, but they..." He blinks twice, the lines of his pupils rounded to ovals. "They want to see him. The changeling."

"Can you actually do that?" Barbara asks. "Find the changeling Parker for them?"

"Possibly," Stricklander says. "If he wasn't out in sunlight at the time the familiars were brought through...between Nomura and myself, we have certain connections."

"—You mean we could've been working backwards, from the changelings, all this time?"

"I never thought of trying," Stricklander says. He doesn't sound apologetic so much as confused. "Not until they asked...they asked me immediately. As soon as I told them...I said it was a mistake, that the boy they thought of their son wasn't, and that their true son was here," and he gives the baby Parker a bounce. Parker squirms and waves and goes back to chewing on his rattle. "But the first thing they asked was if I knew where the other Parker was."

"They wanted their son back," Barbara says.

"But I _told_ them," Stricklander says. "That he wasn't human—and they believed me; I showed them, I took off the glamour mask."

Yes, that would do it. Even over a video, looking into those molten gold eyes, you'd know it was no illusion. You could feel it in the hairs rising on the back of your neck, that this wasn't a disguise or a camera trick, but the face of someone not human.

"They believed me," Stricklander says, "but they still—they want to meet him anyway. Even knowing what he is."

"Of course they do," Barbara says. "Whatever else he is, he's the boy they've known for all these years. He was their child."

"They love him," Stricklander says.

"Yes, obviously."

"But he's a troll." Those yellow eyes are staring at her—no, past her, wide and dazed. "He's..." He shakes his head. "If they knew—they only ever loved him because they thought he was their child, that's why—as a changeling, they can never know, they can never learn; if ever they see your other form, they'll hate you for it, for what you are, same as any true troll hates seeing a hideous human face—"

"That's ridiculous," Barbara says—but he's not saying it like an argument but like a recitation. Like it's something memorized a long, long time ago, and repeated so many times since—"Is that what they used to tell you? Is that what you told other changelings?"

Stricklander twitches, almost a tremble, and in his lap Parker drops his rattle and immediately starts crying. The troll's eyelids flick over his eyes, and when they open again they're more focused.

He crouches to pick up the rattle, gives it back to the baby and then hands the boy off to Barbara. "I can return him to the cradlestone, or else you can care for him, until the Powells come. I apologize for taking him out when no human was here, but it was the only way to convince them."

Barbara looks down at the baby, offers him a finger to grab along with the rattle. "I was going to ask you to get him out anyway."

Stricklander nods stiffly, says, "I can show how to do so—I should have done so already."

"Show me—how to work the cradlestone? I didn't think I could—it's magic, isn't it?"

"The cradlestone's magic may not be easy to master, but it is intrinsically linked to humans, after all, so it should be possible," Stricklander says. "Worth trying, anyway. I can show you with the young Waltolemew, before—"

A chiming ringtone pre-empts Barbara's next question. It's the one she set for Jim. With a distracted nod to Stricklander, she shifts the baby Parker to her other arm to get her phone out of her pocket. "Hello, Jim? Is anything wrong?"

 _"Uh, no, Mom, everything's fine,"_ Jim says, slowing her pounding heart back down. _"Do you have any time to talk?"_

"Of course, honey," Barbara says, retreating from the guest room. She would go to her own room, but the baby Walt is still sleeping in the car seat carrier in the hall, and with Parker in one arm and her phone in her other hand, she can't safely pick him up.

She sits down instead next to the baby carrier, with her back to the wall and Parker snuggled in the crook of her elbow, and the phone tucked against her ear.

 _"Sorry about before, not filling you in on what was going on,"_ Jim says right off the bat. _"Just, it was a little complicated_ — _but we got through it,"_ and he gives her the whole story, as excited and rambling as any ordinary teenager talking about his new favorite movie. She doesn't understand most of it, at least not as well as she'd like, given that this isn't some comic book or video game but her son's life now. It primarily reminds her that she's really got to read up on her Arthurian legend, if her son is going to be running around with Merlin. 

At least Jim ends his tale with a sincere, _"_ — _And we're all fine now, me and Claire and everyone."_

"That's good," Barbara says, and then because that hardly sounds like engaged parenting, stresses, "I'm really glad to hear it. And thanks for telling me everything."

In her arms, Parker starts to fuss. Barbara murmurs and bounces him, and Jim says, _"Oh, is that the baby?"_

"One of the babies, from the cradlestone," Barbara says.

" _Yeah..."_ Jim dithers a moment, finally gets out, _"See, Toby told me, that his grandma told him, that you're maybe keeping one of those kids? Which_ — _you've said there was one you were taking care of, but I didn't_ — _you didn't_ — _anyway. I wanted to tell you, if you were worried or something, that I'm going to be weird about_ — _I'm not."_

"You're not," Barbara says.

 _"Like, I think it's cool, Mom. Really cool_ — _I'd have a little brother, or a little sister? Like I always wanted!"_

"You never told me that. About wanting a sibling."

 _"Because it didn't make sense to. Like, by the time I was old enough to really realize it, I was old enough to know it wouldn't happen. Now, though_ — _but if you're not, if you're just fostering them, that's cool, too! I just, I wanted you to know. That if it's something you want, I'm totally good with it."_

"...It would be a little brother," Barbara says. "It's...he's Mr. Strickler's former familiar."

 _"Huh,"_ Jim says. _"Guess that makes sense..."_

She gives him a moment, but he doesn't ask anything else. Just says, _"Anyway, I can't wait to see him."_

"He's sleeping now," Barbara says, but she angles the phone over the carrier, snaps a picture of the baby and sends it to Jim.

 _"Awww!"_ Jim says _. "He's even cuter than I remember."_

"You've seen him before?" 

_"Yeah, when I was in the Darklands to rescue Enrique_ ," Jim says. So casual a reminder that this isn't even the first time her son's been gone from her.

At least this time Barbara knows where he is, more or less. At least this time she actually knows he's gone at all. That should count for something. She holds the phone closer to her mouth. "Jim—I love you, you know that, right?"

 _"Of course, Mom."_ The surprise in his too-deep voice is what's most reassuring. Like he can't even understand why she'd ask. _"Love you, too."_

After they hang up, she brings both babies to the nursery. Parker is falling asleep, too; she feeds them both a bottle and puts them down for the night. 

Then she goes back to the guest room.

He's still standing in the middle of the room, maybe in the exact place she left him. Stricklander. Walt. His great yellow eyes watch her enter.

Barbara clears her throat, says, "I don't think we should put Parker back in the cradlestone. His parents are going to be here within a couple days anyway. And it's probably better for him to acclimate to being out here in the real world."

Walt nods.

"But I still want you to teach me how to use the cradlestone. If I can possibly learn that magic," Barbara says.

"Of course," Walt says, with another nod. "And you'll be able to. You're intelligent enough to learn the spells, of course, and crucially, you have more than enough will to do so."

He's laying it on thick. Though flattery sounds different in that rough troll voice, more sincere than slick.

Manipulation is one of his skills—an ability honed for service to his masters. It can be useful, though. "Convincing the Powells to come," she says, "you didn't have to do that, you know. It wasn't your—

"—Not my job? Not my responsibility?" Walt says. "But it's yours?" He shakes his head. "You're not the changeling here; you... If I had any shame, any courage, I'd have taken responsibility for the cradlestone from the start. But they're human children. And I'm...they deserve human care. Human love."

He straightens his spine, shifts back his shoulders with a chinking of feather-thin blades. "I've been looking for an apartment," he says. "My old place...isn't so accommodating now. But there are landlords in the area who care more about the size of my bank account than my horns."

"Or you could just stay here," Barbara says. "Without worrying about rent."

"That's not necessary," Walt says with a shake of his head. "I'll still come to help with the cradlestone, to teach you to use it; I don't need to be living here for that—"

"But do you want to be?" Barbara asks. Those cat-slit yellow eyes fix on her, and maybe once she would have found their intensity jarring. Now she just sighs. "Walt," she says, and his shoulders jerk, pupils compressing to lines. "If you're uncomfortable living here, if you want to move out, then do. But if the only reason you're trying to leave is because you think it's what I want—it isn't."

He studies her, waiting. She stares back at him, until finally he asks, "So what do you want?"

"That depends—what do you want?"

"I want..." Walt begins. Then stops, looking down at his hands. He flexes them, claws sliding in and out—they're not entirely retractable like a cat's, but he can withdraw the talons a little. "It's immaterial," he says, and his voice has dropped to a growling rumble. "I'm a troll; that...cannot change."

 _Anymore_ , he doesn't say, but might as well have shouted, by how clearly Barbara can hear it.

"Would you?" Barbara asks him. "Change, if you could—if Merlin had another spell, that could turn you permanently human—would you do it?"

Green eyes instead of yellow. Flesh that would turn pink in the sun, not to stone. No claws, no fangs. No wings.

He hasn't flown with her again yet.

It was so strange, seeing him in here with that mask. It's only been a matter of weeks since he could still change. Not much longer than that, since she didn't even know he was anything but human. But still, it was strange.

Walt's not answering. So Barbara does. "Anyway," she says, "here's what I want. I've thought about it. And I want him—I want another child. The baby, Wally."

She counts three blinks, rapid flickers over those yellow eyes. "Wally?"

Barbara shrugs. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that, too. Waltolemew is no name for a kid, not nowadays. And Walt is your name." She pauses, but he doesn't correct her—maybe he's just too appalled, but she takes the advantage. "So. Wally. I want to raise him. But I don't want to do it alone. I've been a single mom for over ten years, and I've never regretted it; but I don't want to do it again. Especially not when I'm getting older, and he's still so young, and I have my work. It wouldn't be fair to Wally, no matter what I want. So the only way I'll keep him is if I'm raising him with someone. And not just a babysitter—a full partner."

Walt hesitates, but only a moment. "Then you should find someone."

Barbara nods slowly. "Yes. And that's the thing—I have. Or maybe I have—but it depends on what he wants. Whether he really wants this—because you should only have a child if it's what you really want. Not just a sacrifice you make for someone else; something you want for yourself. It's too big a job if you're not completely committed; I learned that the hard way."

Walt stands there, his claws flexing. His breathing is deep, but slower than a human's; she'd pass out if she tried to match it for too long. He says, "I told you, what I want, it hardly matters. As you said, it wouldn't be fair to the—to Wally. After all he's been through, he deserves human parents."

"No, he deserves what any kid does—parents who will care for him, nurture him, teach him. Love him."

Barbara knows that if she tried to punch Walt, she'd just break her hand. But she might as well have hit him with a pickaxe now. His green's starting to look downright gray. "I'm a troll," he says.

"A troll who once had human parents," Barbara says. "And I'm a human who now has a troll for a son. And I want to raise another boy, who was trapped in the troll underworld as a baby for longer than most human have been alive."

"The Darklands aren't exactly..."

"The point is, we're way off the beaten path here. And yes, trolls and humans are different. But since Jim and the others have been gone, do you know who I hear from the most? Not my son who was human, and not Claire who still is, or Toby who's human and right here in town. But I get regular updates from Mr. Blinky, who is the epitome of troll—"

" _Galadrigal_? Hardly," Walt sniffs, under his breath.

"He's got four arms and six eyes. He is one-hundred-percent troll. But he cares enough to stay in touch as often as possible," Barbara says firmly. Then more softly, "It doesn't matter what you are, Walt. What matters is what you want. What you want to do. Who you want to be."

He's staring at her again, but it's different. His face is greener again, though his eyes are glowing almost orange. Less frozen shock, more—captivated awe? Tinged with something like amusement.

"What?" Barbara says.

Walt shakes his head. "You are most definitely your son's mother."

He's still hesitating, though. "But?"

"But heroes take risks that parents can't afford to," Walt says. "Could you...how could you trust me?"

It's only a fair question, when it's what she's been asking herself all this time. But that means she's ready for it. "Do you know what a parent needs, what a partner needs, more than almost anything else? What's most important, to make a relationship work? It's commitment. How long were you a teacher? How long did you live among humans, preserving your identity, while working with the other changelings?"

"...That is to say, how long did I serve a dark lord intent on destroying your people and your world?"

But Barbara's come too far to flinch now. "And what kind of courage, what kind of conviction did it take, going up against him, when you knew firsthand how strong he was?

"You're a lot of things, Walt. And I'd be lying if I said that some of them didn't terrify me. But learning to live with fear, that's part of being a parent, too. And some of the scariest things out there—the things that could take Jim from me, that could take Wally; or could take me from them—they don't frighten me as much when you're here, with me."

She takes a step forward, near enough to touch him, if he doesn't step back.

He doesn't.

She puts her hands on his shoulders, looks up into those lantern-gold eyes. "There's still a lot to work out," she says. "Maybe too much—I don't know. But I want to try, if you want to. If you want to—I want this."

He twitches; she can feel the muscles in his rock-solid shoulders jump under her hands.

Then he unfurls his wings, wraps them around her back. Cups her face in his talons—claws retracted as much as they can, their tips just brushing her cheeks. "I, too," he says.

"Good," Barbara says. Then can't help herself. "Though—there is one more thing."

Walt leans back and loosens his wings enough for her to take off her glasses, slip them into her pocket. "Yes?" he says, and his voice is pitched a little lighter—not human, but rasping in a way she enjoys.

This close, with his eyes glowing so, she can see his features clearly even without her glasses. "Do you really think it's hideous? My human face?"

Walt snorts, unexpected humor parting his fangs. His tongue flickers behind them. "Absolutely not. You are a gorgeous woman, regardless of species. And honestly, though you would make an exquisite troll..." and he leans down, brushes his tusks to her lips, so she can feel each sharp point. "This is what I most want."

Barbara laughs, and kisses him. Or gives it her best shot, anyway, between the fangs. But that's all right. They can figure it out.


End file.
